Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/20/corroborating-evidence-that-he.html
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Circa 4019 CE…
“At the bottom of a secluded bay, archeologists recently discovered a remarkably well-preserved Boeing 737 Max jet aeroplane. Apparently ancient American journalists weren’t being satirical when they wrote of an aircraft that flew by suddenly pitching downward into the ground.”
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I’d like to believe that our herodotus for describing our world would be a trove of dvds of The Soup with Joel McHale.
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Does this mean there’s still some possibility for fox-sized gold-collecting ants?
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“When a historian tells you what a boat was like, believe them the first time.”
– Maya Angelou
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Way to ruin his ‘father of lies’ cred, Nile…
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I’m on a boat ( I’m on a boat )
I’m on a boat
Take a good, hard look at the μητέρα boat, yeah
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French ethnologist Michel Peissel says that the Himalayan marmot on the Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province of Pakistan, may have been what Herodotus called giant “ants”. Much like the province that Herodotus describes, the ground of the Deosai Plateau is rich in gold dust. Peissel interviewed the Minaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, collected the gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when digging burrows. The story was widespread in the ancient world and later authors like Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his gold mining section of the Naturalis Historia.
-Wikipedia
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Incidentally, Nile crocodiles some how know forhand how much the Nile will flood and bury eggs in sand above impending flood elf on shelf levels.
Interesting. the last time I heard of a similar historical reference was when Greek historians attempting to build an accurate reproduction of a trireme used a contemporary account on how a sailor’s head was shoved through an oar hole in the boat’s side as punishment- so they used that info to determine how large the oar holdings were…
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Now wondering what the Ancient Greek for “Ner” was.
Keep your camels away from that one, he looks hungry. Ahhh, too late! He was so fast!
I don’t understand why scholars be all like “pix or it didn’t happen.” Did he say something unbelievable? Like the boat was made of chocolate and crewed by Oompa Loompas? Because it sounds like he pretty much said, “there was a boat,” and if Herodotus says there was a boat, I figure there probably was a boat.
Others attributed the tale to geoprospecting using termite mounds.
Overall, the whole thing is one of the great weird stories. The description on how the collectors of said gold come back is pure comedy gold, as far as I am concerned.
ETA:
I think Herodotus did often enough. You know how it is when someone shouts “wolf” to often?
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